Ecology and conservation of breeding lapwings in upland grassland systems: Effects of agricultural management and soil properties

• Main Author: McCallum, Heather M.
• Other Authors: Park, Kirsty, Goulson, Dave, Wilson, Jerry, Hanley, Nicholas, Sheldon, Rob, Funded by RSPB and University of Stirling, School of Natural Sciences, Biological and Environmental Sciences
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Stirling 2012
• Subjects: lapwing; waders; agriculture; soil pH; marginal farmland; grassland; earthworm; Allolobophora chlorotica; fodder crops; Grassland ecology; Vanellus vanellus
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/13109; http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/13109/1/HMcCallum%20Thesis%20FINAL.pdf

Agriculture is the principal land use throughout Europe and agricultural intensification has been implicated in large reductions in biodiversity, with the negative effects on birds particularly well documented. The lapwing (Vanellus vanellus) is one such species where changes in farming practices has reduced the suitability and quality of breeding habitat, leading to a drop in population size that has been so severe as to warrant its addition to the Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern in the UK. Lowland areas, where agricultural intensification has generally been most pronounced, have been worst affected, however, more recently declines in marginal upland areas, previously considered refuges for breeding wader populations, have been identified. An upland livestock farm in Stirlingshire that uses an in-bye system of fodder crop management and has unusually high densities of breeding lapwings provides a basis for this project to test causal hypotheses for the decline of upland lapwing populations and to identify potential conservation management solutions. Specifically this farm plants a forage brassica in an in-bye field for two consecutive years, followed by reseeding with grass and seven, out of sixteen, in-bye fields have undergone this regime at the study site since 1997. Fields that had undergone fodder crop management supported almost 60% more lapwings than comparable fields that had not previously been planted with the fodder crop. Lapwing density was highest in the year after the fodder crop was planted, once it had been grazed, which results in a high percentage of bare ground, likely to be attractive to nesting lapwings. Lapwing densities remained above that which occurred in fields that had not undergone fodder crop management for a further four years after the field had been returned to grass. The effect of management on lapwing food resources and nesting structure was tested through a field experiment; liming increased the abundance of Allolobophora chlorotica, an earthworm species that was ...